


In a Coat of Red and Gold

by LovelessLadyLazarus



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23657620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelessLadyLazarus/pseuds/LovelessLadyLazarus
Summary: Our two lions dance and plot during a ball.
Relationships: Joanna Lannister/Tywin Lannister
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	In a Coat of Red and Gold

She stands at the edge of the ballroom, away from the crowds, those cruel imitators, who all crave a piece of her glory. Or perhaps she is hiding, from the men, those who desire her dress shredded, all the while her legs wide spread upon the marble floor. Her flawless figure glistens next to Genna, Genna, his sister, the one who smiles too often and too freely. Joanna is smiling as well, yet when she does here out in the open, her face remains cool, a smile just as blue as the frozen lake two miles from the castle. 

All the ladies at court yearned to be her image, the queen herself bewildered by Joanna’s essence. Only few believe to have become her equal in every way possible (they are all so grossly mistaken). The queen herself knows he will never possess Joanna’s virtue, thus fades into the background, while her souls grows black with spite. So, he doesn’t fault Aerys for desiring her, only for acting on those desires in such a way that is unprecedented and worse yet; unprofessional. 

She smiles as he approaches her and this time there is passion behind that deliberate smile. Her eyes burn in brilliant wildfire. “My Lady,” he greets her, then bows low to kiss her hand. His lips linger a moment longer than necessary; when he thereupon yanked his head up (perhaps a too quickly for curtesy), he has the uneasy impression of her laughing at him. 

Yet when he rises up, she only smiles, a coyness in her eyes, he has yet to see from the remainder of their family. “Lord Tywin, have you come to ask me to dance?”

He nods, “Indeed I have,” 

“So why have you not asked yet?” she grins, then offers him her hand. As they stride away he notices a faded figure clad in red silk from the corner of his eye, pulling a face of which he is not if it is purposefully exaggerated or had it simply always been this unpleasant (perhaps he should have greeted Genna as well)?

“O it is so dreadfully disappointing!” she says as they whirl upon the dancefloor. Had he been a lesser man, he would perhaps have contemplated a thousand pairs of beady eyes, stricken with envy enclosing him, however him being Tywin Lannister, he was too encompassed by her splendour to notice. 

“What is my lady?” 

She laughs and at this point he is certain, never had a more exquisite sound reached his ears. “Your father’s performance, of course.” She was mocking him.

“I would think you to have enough sense to have gotten used to that by now.” Admittedly he sounded shrewder than he intended, years of being surrounded by his dimwit father and his equally witless advisors seemed to have taken a toll on his manners, when not carefully composed.

“And yet,” she smiles supremely, then bites her lip. Red stained her teeth, like ink spills over parchment when the glass is knocked over. “Somehow he does, without fail, manage to conceive of new ways of humiliating us with every passing hour.”

He sighs, “to which if his latest actions are you referring specifically?” She doesn’t answer right away, instead grasps him by the hand and drags him across the dance hall, past tens of hundreds of green-eyed faces (though none of them could compare to the magnificence of the incandescent emeralds that were radiating from behind her long eyelashes). He sees no one, as he was touched by the flaming sun, who outshines the stars, in all her ecstatic beauty. She seemed to see them all, offering an ostensibly loving smile or other simple means of communication into their lust-stricken eyes, which they inhaled like a drowning man inhales water. Yet her eyes remained cold. 

As they reached the edges of the hall, he could hear the music subsiding and suddenly there was her and only her, in the undivided spotlight of the universe. Somewhere in the distance he believed to recognise an empty room of dancers spinning to no music. “All of his actions, my lord. Do specifics truly matter in this regard? The Reynes are plotting as we speak. Our own bannermen are turning against us, fuelled by the increasingly lunatic investments of one Tytos Lannister. And what’s worse, everyone seems aware, yet they refuse to take-action. What has become of our house Tywin?”

“If the Reynes shall truly rise up in revolt, I will annihilate them.”

A sound of delight, somewhere in between a laugh and a moan escapes her lips. Joanna raises a delicate hand to his face. Her gentle fingers caress his cheek, while her thumbnail (manicured to perfection) scrapes his skin, in a way that felt virtually predatorial. “I don’t doubt it, for you are but the last true lion in the pride.”

“My Lioness,” he murmured, his tone husky with longing and behind that longing something much deeper and all consuming. 

He loses focus for a moment and when the universe returns to him, there are soft lips upon his own and he reaches for her, holds her like he could never hold her again. The kiss has passes. She steps away. As she grins delightfully wicked, he perceives her lipstick to be the colour of than fresh blood. “Yours?” Her tone is masked, so he can’t quite identify if she is mocking him or genuinely pledging herself. 

Then she takes him by the hand once again and leads him back onto the dancefloor, where hundreds of thousands of people stare at them with envious eyes and he knows none of them, while she knows all.

After the dance she bids him farewell with another kiss, this one on his cheek and whispers so low, he has the feeling he might be hallucinating in his delirium, “You may want to wipe your face Tywin, or they may start speculating about your availability.” 

He feels reality resurface as she floats away, like she was but a leaf being carried by the wind of the ball (though anyone would be a fool to actually believe that). Hastily, he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and begins wiping his cheek and lips, fresh blood on a pale cloth; should the Reynes truly revolt, well he’d be coming for them.

Later than night, when the king asks her to dance she declines politely, much to Tywin’s delight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> Honestly I don't like the way I wrote Tywin in this, as he feels to subservient to Jo and while I definitely do believe her to be the one pulling the strings in their relationship, he definitely has more of a presence in the original. To me they should be more of a power couple of equal brilliance, who knows, maybe I'll do them justice sometimein the future.  
> 


End file.
